Love's Bitch
by obsidians
Summary: Reno reminisces about how Tifa and he got together. Rate M for adult themes


I've never been a fool for love. Love was something that never trapped me. I've loved many women but never took them into my heart, just into my bed. I've shared my body in a parody of loving and left them all in the end. Some of them wanted me as their spouse, but to these I gently turned down. My job wouldn't allow me to ever tell them the full truth about what I do for a living and the long hours and constant travel would only lead to heartbreak and loneliness on their part and infidelity on mine. So, I let them go. It was kinder and they never held my heart anyway. I've always been: a love them and leave them kind of guy.

Until you.

Women have always been drawn to me like a moth to a flame; the flame of my hair that is. They love to touch it and stroke the pale hard, lithe body my baggy uniform conceals. They certainly do enjoy when I take them to bed and never have any left there unsatisfied.

I hadn't counted on you to change all of that.

You knew what I was and never seemed interested in me but in a professional way throughout the years when our paths crossed.

I don't know why Cloud asked me to impart the information that you two were through and he wasn't returning this time.

I played no part in your relationship and didn't enjoy being appointed as his delivery boy and the bearer of bad news, from one that ironically was a delivery boy.

I guess Cloud felt that Rufus owed him a favour as he made a courier out of his Turks as I once said when it came to delivering letters to Aerith's boyfriend.

I felt stupid as I held out the details of his custody proposal for Denzel and suggested monthly payments towards his upkeep. You looked at me as your garnet eyes swam with tears of disbelief. "Was there someone else?" You demanded to know.

"Not that I know of", was my clueless answer. I tried to keep my answers clipped, precise and professional. I was shocked when your face crumpled and you slipped your arms into my jacket so they lay along my waist and your hands rested on the back of my uniform shirt. You buried your face into my unyielding buttons and sobbed like your heart would break.

I awkwardly held you and petted your thick, gorgeous dark chocolate coloured hair and probably muttered: "there, there", like some kind of rube.

I don't know what possessed me to give you my private cell number that four people in the world have. "If you need anything" I said as you took it and wiped your remaining tears away.

I didn't know that what you needed was someone to take over Cloud's "honey do" list and help keep your bar and house afloat with basic home repairs. I was shocked what you asked for the first time. However, I was uniquely qualified for everything you threw at me from my earlier, menial carpentry jobs before I joined my gang and thumbed my nose at my boss, who gave me long hours to slave away and low pay.

Did I look all that alluring as I walked about your place wearing worn jeans and working man's plaid as I literally rolled up my sleeves and got to work? I didn't complain as I wielded a hammer or wrench as well I ever did my electro-mag rod. Was it the sight of myself patiently teaching your foundling, adopted son basic repairs when he requested to learn them? Was it the sight of a pair of redheads bent to task that gave you ideas about us? Did you see more in the future feeding from your marvelous breasts?

I don't know when you began your campaign to draw me into your world and introduce me to domestic life. I was suddenly treated to family dinners, where I was invited to watch movies or play video games with Denzel and Marlene afterwards and these filled all my off-duty time. I grew used to being invited around and thought nothing of it when visits were suggested to my home. You really played me for a sucker as we all splashed about in my pool and I did constant cannonballs with your kids. I grilled up food for us like some super dad and you were the mom in the kitchen constantly bringing out snack trays for her hungry bunch, sides for dinner and pitchers of freshly squeezed lemonade. All of served in your brief black bikini and your sheer coverup failed to conceal much of your lush body from my sex deprived eyes. You might as well have been wearing nothing as you moved innocently about in bare feet.

You seduced me before I even kissed you just by being yourself. You didn't have to resort to: exotic perfumes, enticing lingerie or trying to prove in bed that you were all I would ever need, or various other snares that women before you have laid for me. I was already your victim.

You were shameless as you even took your seduction of me into my very office, dropping by with the suggestion we go to lunch, to bring me an umbrella or jacket on a chilly day and finally; the picnic lunch where you made all my favourites. You strolled into an important meeting and smiled at Rufus and Tseng in a winsome way. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important. Can I borrow Reno for a picnic? He's never been on one and it's such a beautiful day" you said as you hefted a full picnic basket with a bottle of wine peeking out the top and a ridiculous red gingham blanket covered it.

I felt stripped bare for ridicule and might as well have your initials carved into my forehead as Rufus looked incredulously at me and Tseng's normally calm face, looked beyond shocked. But Rufus dismissed me as Rude suppressed a laugh and Elena giggled outright.

I was fuming as I drove us to the park you insisted. "You can't do that again!" I firmly told you, humiliated beyond belief.

"Don't be grumpy. You'll love having a picnic" you said straightening my collar and damn you, I did. I was soon full and happily content. I even fell asleep on the blanket with my head cushioned in your lap, lulled by the warm sun that was muted by the shade of the large tree, the bird song and slight breeze made me drift into a contented sleep. You softly caressed my cheek to wake me and told me "It was time to go back to work sleepyhead" and handed me my electro rod and told me you had been guarding me as I slept.

I scoffed you didn't know how to use it properly, yet I was scandalized how easily you disarmed me. I was forever on the alert for danger even at rest; my job demanded it and my very life depended on it. When had I allowed myself to become so lax around you? You showed me how you learned how to turn on the taser and told me I was lucky you hadn't used it on me, kidnapped me and tied me to your bed. Your eyes were mischievous as you said this but there was something almost predatorial in the way you looked at me. This gave me pause.

Our relationship wasn't sexual, I hadn't even kissed you yet. I facetiously asked you what you would do to me then. You told me you would make me forget any other women I had ever known. I felt uncomfortable and drove you home, before returning to the office to face the heckling of my work colleagues and friends as they called me your bitch and Elena sang a song about us kissing up a tree. It was utter nonsense, I told them, you just wanted me as a friend to help you out, I insisted to every smirking face.

Those same faces smirked on when you met me at the HQ helipad after a particularly gruelling mission, with a crudely written sign held up that your children had done with "Reno" written on it and you bore gifts from them of childish drawings of me to welcome me back. I blushed to see you so publicly claiming me again as you wrapped me in a tight embrace that bespoke of how much you'd missed me. Yet I felt a rush of...something as I hugged you back. I was **_not_** grinning ear to ear, like a fool, as everyone who witnessed us stated.

The next weekend, you had me drop Marlene and Denzel at Barret's. He tolerated me and kept on telling me to use a condom when none was necessary. Your bar was closed as your water heater wasn't working and a new one had to be installed. I invited you to stay at my place and was surprised when you accepted. I took you to neighbourhood food truck that was famous around there for their food and we sat at one of the picnic tables. I didn't take you there to be cheap when it came to dinner, but we both really liked the place. Believe me, when I wine and dine a girl, she knows it.

I asked what you wanted to do that night and you said you wanted me to take you home and make love to you. And like the idiot I am, I did.

I've never had sex that mixed so perfectly: the physical sensations with the emotions I'd been suppressing without realizing when it came to you. You made love with the combination of: your body, heart and soul. You single handedly defeated my sworn bachelorhood and erased the memory of any other woman who had ever been there before you. The experience was akin to a virgin finally sleeping with his first crush; the sense of newness and awkwardness and how you inevitably fell for that person in a puppyish way and they became your whole world, until you both moved on to other partners. Neither of us were virgins but I fell for you the rest of the way as I was a man already teetering on the brink. I surrendered all I was to you that night and became yours in every way possible. I was a Turk in love.

We became lovers but you needed more, so you played your trump card; jealously I didn't know I possessed. I never was the jealous type and would happily hand over my conquests when they told me they met their ultimate mates. There were no hard feelings. A hug and they were on their way to bliss. But when it came to you, I didn't like how the men who came into your bar looked at you like you were a tasty buffet. How you told me of the attractive young widower who would invite you to coffee after PTA meetings and how he had his own adorable children to entice you from my side. I longed to bind you to me and knew there was only one way to do it, but it meant I would have to bind myself to you.

I took you to Costa Del Sol and proposed on a beach at sunset like a stooge. I was down on one knee like a sap in love (which I was; oh how the mighty have fallen) and everything as I held the ring box containing an expensive rock I had personally picked out after hours of searching for the "right one".

You tearfully and excitedly said yes and your eyes were wet as I put it onto your finger; it fit perfectly. Your eyes swam with happiness when you leaned back from our tender embrace as our hearts raced in our chests. I felt overwhelmed and almost moved to tears myself. You tucked some of my hair behind my ear and smirked at me and asked "what took you so long?"

It was then that I knew that I was truly your Bitch and Love's Bitch too. I was captured and you were the jailer who wrapped me up in silken bonds and tied me, the self-described: cynical but lovable, badass rogue, to you for life.


End file.
